


Promises

by seitsensarvi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8051785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seitsensarvi/pseuds/seitsensarvi
Summary: They breach walls and rebuild them around themselves. Assorted drabbles.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fragment 1

He could reach out, if he dared, grasp Erwin’s hand with his own, touch to feel the blood beating beneath the skin, beneath his. Make sure they are both still real and breathing and alive, instead of sand castles with the shape of men, waiting for just another wave or another breath of wind to crumble. Most days he isn’t sure.

He would reach out if he thought himself brave, but bravery has been buried under the weight of comrades' cold bodies and the necessity of survival, long ago, and he sees only all that he could lose. He doesn’t believe he could bear to lose more, doesn’t want to even try.

He busies himself with the cup in his hands, eyes set on the cracks in the china, as if they will mend if he wishes it hard enough.

  
  


Levi thinks of the spark of life that ignites the man’s eyes when he speaks about stepping out of their barren walls, and he wonders how he could ever be so foolish as to hope his own aching bones worthy to rival vast meadows and mighty mountains and endless seas.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fragment 2

Levi knows what he fights for.

He won't stop for even a moment, the span of a breath, still too long, still feeling like a waste, a luxury. The kind he never could afford.

  
  


Erwin struggles to keep his eyes open, hoping that if he wins he'll be forgiven, as if the dead could see. As if they'll weigh the value of his word by the number of hours he refused sleep.

Some days which are most days, walking the frontier between exhaustion and sleep, he remembers their faces. Salvation is not for him. He dreams he could atone, then dissolve ; almost indulges the thought that the world he fights for will not be for him. It's a fantasy, more bearable than hoping he'll live still. Levi would slam the door on him if he told him, he knows. He smiles at the thought, then scolds himself for the weakness.

He dreams of bridges on fire.

  
  


Levi doesn't knock as he enters the commander's office. It's the same every morning and he knows to be as expected as the rise of day. He doesn't take pride in the privilege.

He has half a mind to ask Erwin how much he's slept until their gazes meet; the heavy shadows beneath the man's eyes are answer enough. Instead he asks, dry, “need me to dig a grave for you now ?”, which is answered by the knowing shadow of a smile, half-amused. Levi knows Erwin not to be embarrassed. Erwin knows to expect Levi to come back in the evening, too.

  
  


There is comfort in the tea he brings, the ever present scowl, the feigned indifference. There is comfort whenever Levi is at his side and he knows he shouldn't indulge in the relief it brings as if he could ever have it, at all.

He aches for him. The thoughts he'll never voice grow and he finds himself wishing he had the strength to tell Levi that some days, when the tiredness in his heart becomes louder, he also aches for death.

Instead, in a strike of boldness, he reaches out to where Levi stands, slowly brings his hand to the man's. Light fingertips run across a palm, run up until they meet the barrier of a shirt, and in the space between them he whipsers his thanks, reverent. He senses Levi hold his breath.

Erwin draws back, fills his lungs with too much air — and really it might be that he's breathing for two — and resumes his work.

  
  


Levi always remembers when he wakes.

He trains alone, the early hours blessedly out of space and time. There, he silences his thoughts by shortening his breath, dulls his heart by forcing the blood to run elsewhere, anywhere but. He feels sweat running down his back, cooling instantly as air meets burning flesh, and he blesses the comforting pain of effort for providing a distraction, something to clutch tighter to.

Reveille blasts too close by and instantly he sets his eyes, assumes his role, which is for nobody but one. He rises.

They never bring up any of the indulgences, moments of weakness where eyes linger a beat too long, attempted half-touches and aborted words. Each is a renewed promise and a heavier weight to carry at the same time.

Levi doesn't mind.

He knows what he fights for.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fragment 3, fast-forward a few hundred years  
> mostly comfort

 

It's all practised, rehearsed. The accidents that are not accidents at all still leave Levi speechless but he's taught his body how to reply : safe, guarded, non-committal. He knows the escape routes, has played them all in his mind. They're not excuses so much as they're diversions, he tells himself — in case of a mistake. A correction.

He almost believes it.

And he always wonders when it'll happen next, which of them will initiate, which of them will ignite the flame, and estinguish it before it turns them to ash.

Then one day Erwin lets himself linger. Doesn't remove the hands that went up to fetch an offered cup of tea from his own — a casual occurrence, like any other except suddenly it's not. It's a brush of skin, a tingle that runs too deep. And then it's a hold, affirmed. It's not an accident.

The cup is removed and placed on the desk but the hand comes back and join its twin, still curved beneath a smaller one. Colder, rougher. He sees Erwin bend. Warm hands leaving way to warmer lips. Leaving way to something he should not allow himself to indulge in, and, he realizes, something he longs for Erwin to take.  
  
  


When the commander calls for him in the muted blue of the afternoon, Levi knows.

He's always wondered why the man sends for him, casually, as though it was just another matter of discussing strategies, finishing paperwork, supervising training. Maybe it is. He doesn't waste time on the thought because either way, he can't bring himself to care. Either way, he'd go.

He locks the door behind him, instinctively knows to do just that. Erwin is standing before him when he turns around.

His gaze travels up his chest, stopping on his face, observing shadows play across every curve. He knows them well. His eyes hold onto blue, trying to decipher. Succeeding.

“Eager,” he says, barely focused, and he wonders if he says it to the man, or to himself.

Erwin replies by closing the distance between them. There is no room for pretense, no place for excuses. He needs. He looks at Levi as if to ask permission.

He feels more than he knows that in this silent ritual Erwin frees all he's kept locked inside, carefully concealed, hidden. It's not words he uses, it's not fancy phrases he arranges the way he knows to when he convinces a crowd of pale-faced recruits or not so eager sponsors. It's not the barked orders on the battlefeld, efficient, last barrier between life and not, either. Instead it's half-breaths dancing across skin, short. Instead it's the ghost of lips though they still dare not fully taste, the heat of touch though it still holds back as if afraid to burn. It's the guilt of comfort, undeserved. Of time stolen, borrowed and never given back.

Levi wants to assure this man that nothing he could give him, he hasn't wished for deep inside, begged for, deep inside. He takes the hand that found a hold on his shoulder, lowers it until it meets his drumming heart. He exhales, and it's an invitation.

Ewin takes it.

And so Levi lets him move up across his chest, frame his head with careful fingers, run a thumb across his lips.

Lets him kiss his forehead, his cheeks, soft. Lets him hide his fears in the crook of his neck. Lets him linger and it feels as if he'd found a treasure there (and for a few dizzy seconds, Levi believes him). Finally lets himself close his eyes, take a hold on Erwin's arms, a reminder that he needs the balance. Slowly throws his buzzing head to the side. Welcomes.

And Erwin never looks so beautiful than in those moments when he lets himself take. Never talks so freely than when he use this silent tongue, which needs no tone or politeness; only the heartbeat they share. Levi rakes his nails down a cherished nape, down broad shoulders, down safe arms. He replies.

 _You are allowed to break,_ he wishes his thoughts to carry through the silence as he mouths the shell of an ear, the strong line of a jaw.

 _I will find every piece, and I will build you back up,_ his palms say as they travel up to card through soft hair and push, tight, hold the beloved face against his chest.

 _It's always been for you_ , his closed fist vows on the man's heart, loud.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fragment 4, erwin side

The commander picks him up and orders (asks) him to rise. Orders (asks again) that he serves under him but even then it’s not really under, it’s for, and with. Levi plunges his hands into his own chest, begs that he take his offered heart.

Erwin has a hundred dreams, wishes and hopes, and then one. Levi learns later, also a hundred cracks, a hundred weaknesses. And one.

 

 

It’s the set of his shoulders, Erwin tells himself. It’s the life in those eyes, wild. It’s the way he flies.

Then it’s the comfort, the knowledge he’ll remain, proved time and time again. In case of a doubt, tenfold.

Every time he reveals more of his shame he asks himself if Levi would maybe turn away, but of course he never does. Of course he stays.

Erwin would deny, but he longs to reach out and touch and feel, bring his fingers to the fine hair of a nape, the strong muscle of a back, or perhaps circle the smaller frame with his arms — and wonders again if Levi would maybe leave for this, then. Wonders how far he can go until he gets what he deserves which never was something as beautiful as this, as raw and bright, never someone as beautiful as him.

Wonders if he’ll allow himself the gamble, but it’s possible it never was a gamble at all because again, Levi stays. Pushes against his palm like he himself pushes his luck and it doesn’t shake the feeling that it should not be Erwin’s privilege to watch the tight body unwind, not his pleasure to take, not his to keep.

He’s afraid he’ll taint the man made captain, made right hand, made heart if he keeps going so he takes his fingers away, his whole body, away, and it’s unsettling how he can face assemblies and beasts but has to retreat in front of a man — one man. There’s only an arched brow to greet his guilt, or maybe his foolishness. Understanding, perhaps even a little sad. Excuses die on his tongue. He wants so terribly to apologize. Knows better than to try.

Once more, Levi stays.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fragment 5  
> of guilt and praise

  
He erred and then was found, he learnt how to fight and then why to — and though he decided not to give into any complascence or illusion of safety he also can't stay awake, hours on end and dusk to dawn, holding the handle of any knife, waiting for any threat, anymore. The immediate danger now only comes in broad daylight, in plain view ; in lush forests and endless valleys. When they set foot beyond their cage Levi holds his blades all the tighter.

He is used to watch and being watched, an inevitable part of the everyday surveillance, the survival.

He is not used to the careful assessing that becomes Erwin's gaze when it's directed his way, the consideration and the care he sees there. It looks safe. If he gives it a taste he might come back, wanting more, and that's a treason, an impossibility.

The first time he hears praise coming out of the man's mouth he bites a retort back, clenches his teeth. He won't fall for practised deceits, a liar's craft except it might not be. It runs in his veins, tingling and dangerous.

 

 

It takes time to get used to the violent weather, the storms, the thunder, the winter's snows, but now that he knows them all he'd like to ask wether the monsters' blood join clouds when it evaporates, if the rain's so sour because it soaks every inch of earth with remnants of giants and fear. If every spourting leave tastes bitter because it's poisoned with it, and if that's why he can't seem to ever completely wash the red off his hands, no matter the minutes-hours he spends scrubbing them raw.

In the end, it takes even more time to get used to the light breezes, the warmth, the sun's light.

They're seated all around the table, them and the brass. It's another constant battle, but he's used to the feeling. They're fighting for fundings, fighting to fight. Asking (never begging) for scraps, asking to be allowed out of the walls, to be able to push further, learn more. To stand taller. To stand proud. Erwin briefly looks at him when he says it, a flicker, and Levi can't help but wonder why.

 

 

It's the commander who bandages his hand after a careless turn, the snap of the wires an unwanted encounter. It's shallow, almost nothing, but he insists. His own name always sounds soft when Erwin speaks it. He says it like he's worthy. He adds « let me », so Levi extends his right arm.

It's an irony that Levi never got to bandage Erwin when he inflicted a wound there himself, so much deeper.

Afterwards, he itches to bring his hand up against his own chest and he is surprised at himself, that in this instant he wants to give precisely this. He lets his arm fall from Erwin's fingers to the side of his own body, holds it there. Considers if he should maybe say something, but all that comes to his mind is his fist closed on his heart. He studies Erwin's face and there is the hint of a smile there, apologetic. Levi closes the door silently when he leaves the room, trying not to make a sound.

 

 

They're beyond the walls and there are two pairs of eyes on him ; one is seeing him but not him, it's a predator's sight and he's anyone, he's the common prey. The other is a safe harbor, a promise. It doesn't sway. He slays the first to stoke the fire in the second.

Before long Levi wants to know what he could give to keep it burning so bright. He fights harder, harsher, this time he's a hawk, the next, a disaster. He offers beasts' bones, spills boiling blood. He offers his own, too.

He thinks back to salute he almost gave. It might not matter that his fist never met his beating heart.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fragment 6  
> 84 spoilers

  
The morning of his first expedition beyond the walls, Erwin writes his will.

He writes it to a rising sun and he writes it with a hopeful heart, terror not yet instilled in his bones though he already got a taste.

Erwin hasn’t got much to give away, and barely anyone to give it to. He tells himself it’s not the point. It’s the intent that matters. It’s the deep-rooted knowledge that he probably won’t live to see enough years to grow old, so he sets his resolve in black ink like acceptance, like a seal.

He makes it back alive, that one first time, but he never doubted. Much like he never doubted the progression of his rank, his ability to dutifully climb every step to command, until he can really attempt to shape the world; his dream, humanity’s dream, one and the same he tells himself, one and the same.

The will is quickly forgotten because soon he has bigger words dancing in front of his eyes, papers ornate with loud stamps and louder orders. He forgets his own words of parting as the years pass by, but he doesn’t forget his soldiers’ and he reads each of them when they remain undelivered, the notes and the carefully folded letters, written with the honesty of those who know there won’t be any consequences if they’re weak, nor any shame left to feel, because they won’t be.

He remembers the morning of his first expedition now. He remembers because he’s set to go outside crumbling walls again, except this time he has twenty more years and one arm less and he sees it in Levi’s eyes, this time it’s not the usual uneasiness, it’s not the well-known fear turned strength. This time it’s despair.

It doesn’t suit his captain, he thinks, and he wishes he had a rational explanation for the pain it causes in his chest, piercing and white.

He picks up a quill and reaches for ink in the blaring silence that follows a slammed door or maybe it’s a slammed heart, shut close.

Erwin always had a way with words yet he fumbles with niceties and politeness and none fit the short stature and short temper, the rough hands, the steel eyes. The biggest heart.

He won't offer ghosts of promises. He won't leave could-have-been's. Levi deserves so much more than empty shells, his or else. He doesn't have anything to give if he isn't alive, he realises, and so he prays for a single moment, to tell a single soul.

 

 

Erwin smiles. He smiles even though it's farewell, because this time he got to say goodbye. It's few words, but maybe they are enough. They're less than the man deserves but they're all he's left with and he thinks, there are worse emotions to feel before he goes.

He looks at the wonder of man kneeling in front of him, and he hopes the gratitude he feels reach his eyes when he says, « Levi, thank you ».

He is forgiven. He only feels warmth.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fragment 7  
> you'd think i'd be able to write about something else at least once in my life

Levi offers him the world.

Erwin doesn't know just how much he is aware. Each request is met, each order surpassed. He asks for a piece of sensible information and Levi throws several books' worth of collected data at his feet. He asks for a successful mission and Levi slaughters down to the last beast on their path with his own hands. 

One day Erwin asks for a safe way back, and Levi isn't here. The captain spends every next waking hour making sure it never happens again.

There are some things Erwin doesn't ask. He could peel away every layer and dissect the core and get the same answer because maybe Levi's already wearing his heart on his sleeve, obvious, and it's the most frightening still. Frayed at the edges, beating fiercely.

There is no need for explanations to know exactly what the attentions mean, when Erwin dares to see, what the steel eyes say. They're clear. They're deafening. 

It's in every twist of the blades, tightly gripped. In every splatter of blood and every shattering corpse, giant-boned. Every flexed muscle moving to obey his voice, and his voice only. Every hour of sleep he gets against his will, every report the small hand writes gracefully when Erwin can't, tiredness heavy on his eyelids but he'd pick the quill himself if he had fingers to hold it. 

The commander can't shake the thought that he is guilty of every offense, picking Levi up and staining his hands, saving his life and making him kill, and he tries not to wonder whether every order makes the man better or worse. He isn't so inconsiderate as to deprive him of the clarity of his choice, even if some days he insists on taking the blame for that, too.

For humanity, he says instead. For humanity it is. Vague notions don't feel regret, faceless concepts don't feel shame. It's broad and impersonal and just what is needed to do the job. Erwin excels at his job.

For humanity, Erwin repeats, louder. It was foolish to think he could hide behind some words while avoiding some others, but they were a safety. And maybe he failed to realize that there was never a need for safety at all. That Levi never fell for it, not once.

Erwin envies vague notions. They don't have to will a thundering heart to slow, trembling hands to still.

The one time he asks for rest himself, it's not for humanity's sake, and it's not humanity that grants it. It's the small frame of the strongest man that forgives him, a bent knee and two piercing eyes all that's needed to absolve him. Levi would give all he possesses, and all that he doesn't. Erwin should have seen, should have known, that it begun and ended with him, that it'd end with him, that it could only ever end with him. 

He shouldn't be surprised. He doesn't deserve any of the man's gestures, but Levi never cared about what he deserved; he offered anyway.

He recognizes the familiar sting of remorse but he's not allowed to apologize, not this time, not again. He knows it when they part, perhaps clearer than ever before, so he takes what he's given, grateful and awed. 

Levi offers him his world.


	8. Chapter 8

The commander could walk in plain clothes and no longer be a bearer of death and tragedy, the captain advises. It would leave him unburdened, without a glance cast his way. The commander smiles at his words. The captain watches as he carefully adorns the wings.

To the muffled sound of a knock he prefers a whirlwind, to come spinning; turning the man's head amidst the dizziness of the ride, in a corridor, in the dead of the night. Dead in his tracks.

He comes too fast to find the time to stop and assign a name to the strength coursing through his body, to the will to push further and harder and better. He blesses and curses in turn.

Sweat pools at the small of the captain's back, at the back of his knees. He dreams of crashing waves, wakes on a shore that has never seen the sea.

Outside, the water weighs on his steps. He forcefully tears his feet from the soaked ground, so that he won't sink. Blood merges with soil until all is gone. 

Water runs down the commander's back, and he has to avert his eyes.

The captain thought little of it when the commander praised his quick thinking with a voice too low for the task, tired, but genuine. It would have distracted him. He had not expected the hand that fell on his shoulder the next moment in the smallest of treasons; nor for it to squeeze, warm, once. 

He had not expected the first suspended second of stupor, the pain radiating there. He'd torn himself away the next. Surely neither of them believed this hand really belonged here. 

The captain chances guesses. The commander had not meant to reach for him, had only tried to be cordial. Used familiar reflexes. Wished for his straying limb to be cut off precise and clear.

He wonders. He could take his brain apart and lay its remains dissected to observe and he would not come closer to an understanding. He keeps it untouched, mostly.

The commander comes to his own conclusions, strategically. He makes a point never to touch, to an annoyance and to a fault, but the captain can't fault him.

As if to make up for the affront, the man offers some of his own weakness, speaks of a long-lost love with a smile curling the corner of his lips, gentle as a memory. The captain wounds himself tight.

When the commander asks if he can take a look at his ankle with the assurance of an expertise Levi knows he has not, he only half-reluctantly agrees. He is curious, if only for the brief moment it takes before the commander's hands become real. 

The skin burns once more as if it were meeting scalding iron instead of flesh. The captain retreats. He sees open guts and rows of teeth. He heaves and curls. For a second, he splits. 

The captain isn't curious anymore. He brushes it off, complains to the commander about the injury.

He still wonders afterwards. He wants to feel it again. Some days, desperately.

First he tries cold on his bones or, in mock carelessness, a beast's nail at his arm. He tries running on tired muscles until he collapses, aching and spent. It never hurts the same, doesn't satisfy.

It comes closer when the commander comes back — when not all of him comes back. 

He takes the step then, meets him halfway.

The first press of his palm has the captain drawing in a sharp breath and he doesn't care to worry that the sound might be mistaken for anything further unrefined than the mundane shock of pain. 

He concentrates on the task when his veins are taken apart, carefully, dearly. He barely sees as he grabs the bucket of water, the towel. It only matters that he washes the nightmares and sweat off the commander's skin.

He will do this until he goes blind.

The commander watches in the place of a question, surprised at the touch or the care but he, too, must want to learn what the gesture is for, be too curious to refuse, or too winded to try his voice.

The captain takes the time like it's his only duty, weaving circles in marbled skin with cloth first, than his bare hands, until they birth a shiver not in him.

Fingers brush past tender scars, pushing needles up each knuckles in their wake. They come back to trace them one by one, slower.

There, off-handedly, the captain wonders how much deeper the pain would run if he ever were to touch his mouth, instead of just his palms, to the tender flesh of the commander's shoulder.

The man still doesn't loosen the tension in his brow. The captain doesn't ask him to. Instead, he nurses silent screams and clenches his teeth. He lets out a trembling breath, and says nothing.

When he is done, the captain ties a precise knot with the empty sleeve and hands the commander his wings.


End file.
